


You and I

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crack, Family Reunions, I Don't Even Know, Inappropriate Humor, No Plot/Plotless, Random & Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-09 22:15:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7819285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony lets out a long groan and Sam sighs. He understood that Tony didn’t really do the ‘meet the parents’ thing given that, at least according to Rhodey, he’s never actually been in a relationship before, but he could at least <em>try</em>. </p>
<p>“Why couldn’t we have done dinner? Then we could have got there a little late, ate, and made a hasty and strategic exit but no, we’re going to a whole weekend of meeting your entire family because a family reunion was the place you decided to introduce me."</p>
            </blockquote>





	You and I

Tony lets out a long groan and Sam sighs. He understood that Tony didn’t really do the ‘meet the parents’ thing given that, at least according to Rhodey, he’s never actually been in a relationship before, but he could at least _try_. “Tony, stop your whining and crying, you will be _fine_. You’re very lovable,” Sam tells him, giving him a winning smile.

He gets maybe two seconds of peace before Tony is whining again, “why couldn’t we have done _dinner_? Then we could have got there a little late, ate, and made a hasty and strategic exit but no, we’re going to a _whole weekend_ of meeting your _entire_ family because a _family reunion_ was the place you decided to introduce me. And not only that, but your whole family is _still_ disappointed that you broke it off with your _last_ boyfriend so they’re all going to hate me.” Tony’s giving him that wide-eyed look of exasperation that he usually only uses when something he’s trying to build isn’t going quite right. Sam lets out a long sigh and accepts that Tony was going to whine and cry for the whole damn trip.

“They will like you just fine when they see we’re happy together they’ll give up on Bucky and accept that we’re never getting back together. Do _not_ make a Taylor Swift joke, I will slap you. Besides, I love you, you know I love you, and that’s all that matters,” he reasons. Tony softens a bit then but Sam can still see that he’s worried this will go badly.

“I love you too, but I don’t think I love anyone enough to make it through a weekend long family reunion. This was a terrible idea,” Tony says. So he sort of had a point there but Sam was of the firm opinion that his family needed to give up on Bucky and what better way to do that that all but shove Tony down their throats? One weekend and he’ll stop getting ‘so how’s Bucky?’ calls from everyone and maybe, if he was really lucky, they might ask how Tony was.

Of course it takes Tony all of three seconds to ruin that.

*

Sam, Tony was certain, was trying to murder him via family relations and his suspicions are confirmed when some aunt or cousin or some shit comes walking over with a _child_. It wasn’t that Tony hated kids; he just loathed them with the passion of five thousand burning suns. His top most hated things included Howard Stark, Justin Hammer, praying mantises on toilet seats, and children. They were loud, always sticky and gooey, they had no concept of personal space, and if they were the fresh ones everyone cooed about how cute and yummy smelling they were. This in particular floored Tony because when he smelled like day-old vomit and his own shit people did _not_ find it cute and adorable. Plus all newborn babies looked like wrinkly, too old potatoes with eyes. They were not cute, they were not adorable, why people wanted to eat them he did not know but was very freaked out about it, and he wanted those things nowhere near him.

So when Sam’s whatever-the-shit-she-was comes walking over with her own ugly wrinkly potato squirming around in her arms like some kind of fucked up human larva Tony automatically makes a face and leans into Sam. This was his cue to save Tony but he just gets a slightly irritated look from him. So Tony sits there and suffers while the human potato larva squirms, makes fucking weird noises, all while the Proud Mother brags about it.

If there was one thing he hated more than babies, more that Justin Hammer, and maybe even more than Howard Stark, it was parents bragging about mundane shit their kid could do. If the thing was mildly impressive he dealt with it, first steps were probably exciting, same with first words. They were all going to do that shit anyways so he found it unimpressive but he could at least see why people might be excited. He was excited about his first circuit board when he finished it at five, at least until Howard busted it, so he got it. In hindsight the thing was shit but it was an accomplishment at the time. But when parents went on and _on_ about how advanced their kids were when they were doing extremely unimpressive things it drove him _nuts_. Especially because he actually _was_ an advanced kid and he spent a good portion of his time being made fun for it.

He tries not to make too many faces or be otherwise rude despite being equally bored and annoyed out of his mind though, for Sam’s sake. And Sam, because Tony was certain he was a patron saint, listens intently and asks relevant questions the whole time. The man was a real hero because Tony couldn’t possibly put up with so much rambling about a baby _lifting its head_ making it advanced. But unfortunately for him he does not escape from this situation without completely ruining everything. He doesn’t mean to, but when she turns to him and asks what he thought his brain-to-mouth filter leaves his life completely, or more so than usual. “Honestly the fact that it can its head is extremely unimpressive, it’s almost like ninety-five percent of the population can do that,” he says and his tone isn’t snide, but the statement was rude enough to get an offended look.

Sam is dragging him off before she can respond, because he’s a saint, and also because Tony was about to get chewed out. “Seriously? You spend a two whole hour car ride complaining no one will like you and then start with _that_? Work with me a little, Tony. They would like you if they didn’t now have the impression that you’re an ignorant ass, which that statement was rude by the way. Just let her have her happiness over her kid, why be such an ass about something like that?” he asks, giving him that ‘you’re hopeless’ look that he’s gotten about a million times before.

“Because it isn’t exciting to anyone but her. I’ve heard the same damn story a _billion_ times and I’ve heard people complain about it just as much only to do the same thing when they have kids. I get it, you’re excited, but your kid is completely normal and I don’t care about it. People would be bored if I took up the whole conversation talking about all the cool and exciting things I do in the lab with Bruce, and those things are _actually_ amazing and world shattering, so I have the common decency to limit it to a sentence or two. The least people could do is realize that maybe their exciting things aren’t exciting to everyone else and find better common ground. Plus, and I am going to stress this, I spent _fifteen minutes_ listening to a woman talk about her kid lifting its head. Last week I synthesized a completely new element and I’m supposed to be jumping for joy that this kid did something so bland? Yeah, okay,” he says with maybe too much attitude but come on, really?

Sam’s expression softens a little at that, “Tony,” he says softly, “I know that sometimes conversations are boring to you-”

“Sometimes? Try all the time and I get it, people aren’t generally as science savvy as me and that’s fine, but at least bring up an interesting topic of conversation. Kids lifting their heads, like most humans do, are not at all exciting in near any context let alone worth fifteen minutes of _anyone’s_ time. I don’t see why I’m the rude one for pointing out the truth, I’m sure the kid does some other completely normal but at least somewhat exciting things. Maybe it rolls over, I mean a dog can do that, but at least that’s kind of an accomplishment.” He rolls his eyes and rubs his temples. How Sam, someone who was also genius level smart, could do this shit he had no idea. Bruce got it at least, he was weird as hell and everyone hated him for it minus Betty, so when Tony was weird too he didn’t care. Plus he had the same inability to relate to his peers on a normal level so he and Tony became best buds.

Rhodey, while not a genius, was at least an exciting and interesting person, and Pepper too. Maybe she didn’t understand science like he did but she was an impressive debater and she could at least hold a conversation about topics that didn’t make him lose his precious brain cells. Even if one of those topics happened to be off-the-wall conspiracy theories that made no sense but were fun to talk about. Rhodey complained that he lost brain cells, but trying to make nutty conspiracy theories sound less like the work of a particularly deranged writer with too much imagination and no ability to build a plot and more like a sane and rational argument was work. Plus Pepper and Rhodey disliked kids as much as him so he knew he could love them without having to worry about ditching them when they thought their kids were advanced for being painfully average.

He gets a sigh from Sam, “alright, I get it, it happens to me too but at least try, for me,” he says, pleads really.

“I do try Sam, all the time but there’s only so much I can take and I feel like anyone would be at their wits end with someone talking about a baby lifting it’s head after fifteen minutes. I was quiet until then because I didn’t have anything nice to day and you know I have no brain to mouth filter on a normal day let alone when I’m nervous. Or drunk,” he says. His being nervous and drunk was how Sam found out Tony loved him and Bruce, because he is a cruel human being, filmed the whole thing. “You know, it’d be nice if someone tried to compensate for me for once instead of always expecting me to cater to them.” Except when he was being an ass, which was admittedly often, but he trusted his friends and Sam to call him on that.

*

His mother did not look impressed and Sam had no idea how, exactly he was going to explain this. “I don’t know what I was expecting but it is safe to say that he was not it, and I can’t say I’m very impressed,” she says, hands on her hips. Tony had faked out hours ago, claiming to be tired even though Sam knew there was next to no way that was true. But he could see how exhausted Tony was trying to deal with so much all at once when he was genuinely bad at human interaction.

Sam never would have guessed extroverted and smooth talking Tony Stark was painfully socially awkward but it turned out there were approximately three social situations he knew his way around. One was anything science related, two was anything business related, and the third was somewhat shaky but he at least managed to pick people up from bars. That was how they met, even if Tony’s pickup line was cheesy and ridiculous. But he was charming and when Sam made a science joke Tony all but jumped on it. And that was how Sam accidentally conditioned himself to get a boner every time someone mentioned particle accelerators.

“Ma,” he starts but his mother cuts him off.

“You said he was respectable and a lovely person, I have not seen any evidence for that,” she says, arms folded across her chest and her eyebrows raised.

“He is respectable Ma, he _made_ a new element last week in the lab and that isn’t even the first earth shattering thing he’s done this month, or the third. He runs his own very successful business, has theories so advanced and revolutionary colleges teach entire courses about them, and he does a lot of charity work and not just for show. I could, and have, done way worse. So he’s socially awkward, realistically he is not the most terrible date someone in this family has brought to diner,” he points out. He could point to literally any date his cousin Sandy has ever brought to anything ever, or Uncle Lou but they still put up with his crusty ass.

“Oh, so we’re calling rude socially awkward now? The least he could have done was make an effort,” she says. The problem was that Tony made a lot of effort, especially if someone said something that he found particularly stupid. Sam saw him die a little inside when someone mentioned their best friend being ditzy because she was blonde. He could practically hear him mentally shouting about hair color not being in any way connected to intelligence or how the brain works and how that logic was completely nonsensical. Though, to be fair, this was something he felt far more strongly about than the average person because both Natasha and Pepper complained a lot about people assuming their hair color indicated entire personalities. Neither one of them fit the ‘fiery redhead’ trope people were so fond of applying to them. But Tony remained silent about the comment even though he could rant about the subject for hours.

That didn’t even include Sandy’s idiot date saying he didn’t believe in the moon and honestly Sam was deeply impressed that Tony managed to both keep a straight face and not say anything about it. That was a level of self-control Sam did not know Tony possessed until now. “Ma, he _did_ make an effort, it wasn’t like people did a lot of talking about things he knows anything about. And when people asked questions he gave them polite answers, what else did you expect?” he asks. And some of the questions were either stupid or rude, which Sam had fully expected Tony to point out, but he didn’t. Instead he somehow managed to find mostly thoughtful and reasonable responses, even to Uncle Lou’s admittedly invasive and rude question about his sexuality.

His Ma gives him a look and he sighs, “what? He wasn’t unreasonable and before you say anything about the baby comment he _did_ sit there and listen to a fifteen-minute conversation about a baby lifting its head. Anyone would have been annoyed after that, even if he didn’t need to be so harsh about it. And, to be fair, its also worth it to note that he genuinely has no understanding of social niceties, to him he was just stating a fact,” he says. It was something that happened frequently to Tony and it always left him confused as to why people were so upset with his blunt honesty. When Sam _finally_ figured out he mostly wasn’t being an ass he made an attempt to explain euphemisms to him but Tony had been left bewildered by the high value on honesty, but only if it was wrapped in a pretty bunch of words. He found bluntness more direct and useful. To be fair most of the time Sam did too, it made it easier to know what Tony was thinking at any given time, even if he could sometimes do without the harshness.

In the end he leaves the argument with skeptical looks and his Ma asking about Bucky. Sam told her he got married even though that wasn’t true, but it would at least keep her from asking. By the time he makes it back to his bedroom he finds Tony spread out across his bed surrounded by papers and designs. “Make anything cool while I was gone?” he asks, moving some papers aside to lie down beside Tony. He gets a look for his efforts but Tony doesn’t complain about it like he would with anyone else.

“I’m working on a death ray,” he says in such a serious tone that Sam bursts out laughing.

“Seriously?” he asks, half curious to see if Tony was joking and half wondering if he could do it.

“No, I’m trying to gather more information about the element I made. But I did try and make a death ray when I was seven after some neighborhood kids beat me up, all it did was make my ears ring.” Tony grins at him and Sam is half horrified that Tony would test a _death ray_ but somewhat curious to see what seven year old tormented Tony came up with. “Relax, Wilson, I tested it on some plants and they lived to see another day. I ended up hacking the school computer system and failing them in all their classes, which turned into failing them in the three classes they were passing.”

“Evil genius,” Sam accuses.

Tony preens, “guilty as charged,” he says proudly.

*

The rest of the weekend goes just as terribly as the first day, but thankfully Bruce had an accident in the lab so Tony got to sit Sunday out while he talked Bruce through not killing himself with a new and unstable element. It went well and Bruce even had time to get home to dinner almost on time and they discovered the new element probably wasn’t toxic to people. That wasn’t the best way to test things like that but hey, at least Bruce wasn’t dying and they weren’t about to loose all their research. That would have been a pain in the ass and Tony knew for a fact that Ross would have to pry that research out of Bruce’s cold, dead hands.

Sam’s admittedly very loud and very large family comes home as he’s talking Bruce though proper storage but they thankfully leave him to work alone in the kitchen, probably because Sam almost lost his mind when he said Bruce fucked up in the lab. Too be fair the last time Bruce did that he almost died and was now sterile thanks to an experiment gone wrong. This time Bruce and little Bruce made it out the other side mostly untouched though so that was good. Unless he was dying slowly and he wasn’t showing signs yet, but all of his tests came back clean so he was probably fine.

“Hey,” Sam says, walking in roughly an hour later, “Bruce okay?”

“Well, he’s not dead,” Tony says, earning a worried look from Sam.

“That sounds promising,” his mother adds, creping up behind Sam to give him dirty looks. He knew she wasn’t going to like him but hey, he was good at being the family disappointment so at least he already had that role down.

“Could be, all his tests say he’s not dying but for all we know the symptoms remain dormant for awhile. We don’t really know anything about the element and what it does so we’re sort of hoping he’s not going to drop dead in the night. He did get to skip out on dinner with Ross though so we both decided that all things considered even if he died he still sort of dodged a bullet.” Tony’s meeting the parents thing might have gone bad but at least they only gave him dirty looks and compared him to Sam’s ex, Ross straight up tried to have Bruce killed.

Of course that’s all kinds of illegal so that didn’t really work, and Betty stopped speaking to him for a year, but that was some next level shit. Now Bruce got petty revenge by eating half of whatever Ross left in the staff room fridge every day and Tony, ever the faithful friend, always made sure there was no evidence of Bruce’s indiscretions. Ross deserved half eaten food, extra spit.

Sam’s mom gives Sam a look after Tony was done speaking; clearly assuming Bruce was a bad influence or something. “Ross is a fundamentally bad person who should not be in a position of power but for some reason he’s a General. Don’t look at me like that Ma, he tried to have Bruce _killed_ when he found out the poor man was dating his daughter. And Bruce is a sweet guy, a little odd, but pretty harmless,” he says.

“Well, unless he’s in the lab but to be fair that’s more the materials we work with and not him,” Tony says. For all the stupid shit he’s done it was typically Bruce that had problems, which irritated the man to no end. Tony was just as confused because by all means he shouldn’t be so lucky.

“God knows how it’s _him_ that always gets into accidents and not you when that one time you regularly forget the protective gear,” Sam says, shaking his head.

“I get excited about things and forget, okay, its only sort of my fault,” he says even though it’s totally his fault.

*

Sam was sure that he had escaped the baby pictures because his Ma still hated Tony and he seemed content with that but no. With Bruce saved his mother decided that embarrassing him was the best course of action and Tony, sweet, innocent Tony had no idea what he was walking into. “Jesus that is an ugly child,” he says as soon he lays eyes on the horror that Sam was before puberty thankfully made him cute. No one ever believed him when he said he grew up ugly but oh boy he was he an embarrassing looking child.

“That’s Sam,” his Ma says, mildly offended that Tony insulted Sam but he didn’t blame him, he was an ugly child. Plus he knew about Tony’s bellbottoms phase and he _chose_ to look like an ugly idiot, at least Sam had no choice, so he figures he’s the real winner here.

Tony looks back and forth between the picture and Sam, “are you sure?” he asks, clearly confused.

“I know what my son looks like,” she says, giving Tony the side-eye.

“Okay…” Tony says, giving the picture a suspicious look. That lasts all of two seconds because the next picture in the album was far worse than the first and Tony bursts out laughing. “Your eyes are basically on the opposite sides of your head and they’re so buggy,” he says, cackling.

“Kids used to call be bug eyed Sam, which really was not that creative but I did have some pretty gnarly bug eyes,” he says, shrugging. He came to terms with his bug eyes a long time ago, and he got the satisfaction of hitting puberty, if a little late, and ending up way more attractive than any of his classmates. Tony doubles over laughing, no longer making noise. The rest of the pictures include Tony giggle snorting until he got to age fifteen and did a double take, clearly wondering how the hell _that_ happened and honestly Sam too. One day he looked like one of those pug memes and the next he looked like an above average attractive human being.

“Damn, puberty hit you with the pretty stick and honestly that has gotten better with age,” Tony says. “I went from looking like a generic rich kid to a somewhat distinctive rich adult.”

Sam snorts, “I doubt there was ever a time in your life that you didn’t stand out,” he says. It was _Tony_ ; he had enough dramatic flair to stand out from any crowd.

“Nah, the only reason I stood out was because fourteen year olds don’t typically graduate from MIT. And then came the neon phase, then that phase where I decided that Eminem had a cool wardrobe, you can imagine how stupid _that_ looked, and then the space aged stuff. You might have been a little bug eyed but at least you didn’t make the choice to look like a fool,” Tony says. The look his Ma gives him suggests she didn’t think he left that stage quite yet.

“A little bug eyed? Honey those things stuck out so far people thought there was something medically wrong with me,” he says and Tony lets out a whole new round of laughter. He was perfectly healthy; he just had some weird ass eyes until his head got a little bigger.

*

“Ahh,” Tony says, “here they are,” he passes Sam his StarkPad and he nearly busts a gut at the picture. Little Tony was posed exactly like some fifteenth century monarch looking so incredibly pissed off about this and his little renaissance outfit was adorable. “My mom thought I looked regal,” Tony says. Sam doubles over laughing harder because Tony looked like a fucking idiot in all those frills. “That isn’t even the worst of it,” Tony says and he flips to the next picture.

As it turned out Sam’s bug eyed childhood was nowhere near as horrible as Tony’s photo ops as a kid. One of them featured him dressed as a cat licking his own hand, looking like someone was all but forcing him to do that. Another involved him dressed as a farmer, pitchfork and all but Sam’s favorite was Tony dressed up as an eggplant. The poor kid had been stuck in a terrible purple costume with a leafy hat and Sam was eighty percent sure Tony was crying.

Tony confirms it for him, “come on, would you want to wear that? That hat was _so_ itchy,” he says, running his fingers through his hair as if he got phantom itches from the material.

“I am so sorry for laughing but you’re wearing a _leaf hat_ ,” he says, cackling loudly.

“Yeah, yeah,” Tony mumbles, plucking the StarkPad from his hands and sitting in his lap, “but I figured it was only fair that I show you my embarrassing childhood pictures since I laughed so hard at yours. Plus I kind of feel bad for ruining your family reunion,” he says.

“Nah, Uncle Lou getting drunk and streaking ruined the reunion, and no one is going to remember you after Sandy’s boyfriend told everyone he didn’t believe in the moon, cats, or carpets. He was _standing_ on a carpet when he said that. Anyways, people finally stopped asking me about Bucky so I’m going to take that as a good sign,” he says, pressing a kiss to Tony’s temple.

“I feel like it should be a bad thing that I got outshadowed by your, uh, quirky relatives but I don’t. Let them think Sandy’s date was an idiot, they’re right.” Tony leans into his touch and Sam holds him close, glad that Tony at least made it mostly unscathed through this ordeal. He was so saving that eggplant picture to his phone and using it as his screen saver though.


End file.
